PSA: Summer Event Item Inflation/Pricing Changes + St. Patrick's Rollbacks

Hello, all

Updating on the new changes to Summer seasonal furniture that dropped with the last patch as well as what cosmetics and other items I had stashed back. A good majority of this post will be a copypaste from my previous PSA besides the items listed, but there are a few notes as well as some discounted item updates regarding St. Patrick's Day rollback in another post below.

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So, it seems we have another seasonal inflation wave on the horizon. Given what happened with St. Patrick's Day/Spring, I watched more closely with the latest hotfix and took inventory of my Summer items. There I found several rarity changes but also, more importantly, price changes that occurred via their descriptions. I'm not sure if there will be an official thread or test server post to voice concerns, opinions or information on the event until the day of, so I figured I'd make one for just that purpose.

Below are price changes of items and cosmetics I had, as well as offered suggestions and feedback to the dev team about them.

Furniture Inflation

Below is the list of furniture I could find, the original price as of 2024's Summer Seasonal, and what it's price is now.

Were 12 Sand Dollars, are now 25:

• Parrot
• Summer Speaker

Were 6 Sand Dollars, are now 25:
Since these are a bit more egregious, I've also listed their prices for the year they were released.

• Lawnmower (was 20 marks in 2021)
• Treeline (was 20 marks in 2020)
• Aquarium Window Large (was 10 marks in 2022)
• Reef Porthole (Large) (was 15 marks in 2018)
• Porthole (Floor) (was 6 marks in 2017)
• Bamboo Shower (was 25 marks in 2018)
• Sidescuttle (was 15 marks in 2017)
• Patio Door (was 10 marks in 2023)

Note: I didn't have the following item in my inventory, but I'd take an educated guess that Seafloor Porthole (Large) (15 marks in 2018) are also included on this list.

Were 6 Sand Dollars, are now 10:

• Aquarium Window
• Reef Portholes
• Seafloor Portholes
• Cabana Bar
• Cabana Umbrella
• Beach Fence
• Rowboat
• Rowboat - Damaged
• Leaf Fan
• Above Ground Pool
• Artificial Grass Square
• Artificial Grass Square - Rolled
• Artificial Grass Strip
• Artificial Grass Strip - Loosely Rolled
• Artificial Grass Strip - Partially Rolled
• Artificial Grass Strip - Rolled
• Gravel Path - Corner
• Gravel Path - Curve
• Gravel Path - Intersection
• Gravel Path - Split
• Gravel Path - Straight
• Gravel Path - T
• Chum Bucket Group
• Chum Bucket (Sideways)
• Chum Bucket
• White Bucket (Sideways)
• White Bucket
• Mounted Shark Head
• Hanging Shark (League)
• Hanging Shark
• Surfboard Waves (Wall) - Bitten
• Surfboard Blue (Wall) - Bitten
• Surfboard Waves (Wall)
• Surfboard Blue (Wall)
• Surfboard Waves (Floor) - Bitten
• Surfboard Blue (Floor) - Bitten
• Surfboard Waves (Floor)
• Surfboard Blue (Floor)
• Surfboard Red (Wall) - Bitten
• Surfboard White (Wall) - Bitten
• Surfboard Red (Wall)
• Surfboard White (Wall)
• Surfboard Red (Floor) - Bitten
• Surfboard White (Floor) - Bitten
• Surfboard Red (Floor)
• Surfboard White (Floor)
• Lex Beach Towel & Sand
• Joker Beach Towel & Sand
• Circe Beach Towel & Sand
• Camp Fire
• Camp Chair
• Fairy Lights, Low - Ceiling
• Fairy Lights, Low - Wall
• Fairy Lights - Wall
• Firewood Pile
• Firewood Pile - Full
• Camp Picnic
• Tent
• Camper Trailer
• Camp Canoe
• Camp Hammock
• Camp Lantern
• Camp Hatchet
• Log Bench

Cosmetics/Orbital Inflation

I didn't have as many cosmetics saved back as I did furniture but are the few I did. Here's the list below with their current price as well as what they were listed as being priced in 2024:

• Condiment Master Belt was 12 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• Shark Fin was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• King Shark Head was 12 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• Solstice Seahorse Floatie was 8 Sand Dollars is now 15
• Shark Maelstrom Uplink Device was 15 Sand Dollars, is now 50
• Pineapple Chroma Pack was 25 Sand Dollars, is now 100
• Fisherman Slicker is was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 15
• Fisherman's Rubber Boots were 8 Sand Dollars, are now 15
• Hula Lei was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• Hiker Boots were 8 Sand Dollars, are now 25
• Fiddler Crab Shell was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 15
• Dynamic Swimtop was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• Pirate's Tricorne was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• Cap of the Tidewalker was 8 Sand Dollars, is now 15
• Casual Beachwear Top was 12 Sand Dollars, is now 25
• True King's Trident Staff was 12 Sand Dollars, is now 40
• Atlantean Gloves were Sand Dollars, are now 15

Mark Allotment

I'm unsure of how many changes will be made to the event itself, but on the off-chance mark yield and progress are altered as they were during St. Patrick's Day/Spring, below is a comprehensive list of the amount of marks given within the Summer seasonal as well as what was needed to be accomplished in 2024*:

• Open World Strait To Metropolis mission gave 5 Sand Dollars for Disabling 3 Generators and Defeating 10 Boarders
• The Tides of War queue-in gave 5 Sand Dollars
• The Vault gave 1 Sand Dollar

*Note: These are from the Hero's perspective, but I assumed Villains also had the same yield/task numbers to accomplish. Please let me know if otherwise.

Suggestions for the Dev Team

Before getting into this, I just want to let the team know that we understand you need to keep the lights on and things moving. We also know certain things are asked of you from higher ups as well. However, we also ask you to acknowledge and know that having older items inflated during seasonals, especially with unannounced hotfixes, is really detrimental to a large majority of your community. A lot of us look forward to the seasonals (moreso than DLCs some days) because the items you've released and keep releasing for them are some of the best in game.

I don't know what pressure you have put on you (I can only imagine) so I doubt I'd be able to offer a viable solution outright. However, I think there may be ways to find a good middle ground with us then just outright inflation/timesink tactics that just feel... well, bad.

One way I'd suggest, if you have to go the inflation route, would be lowering costs of individual items but increase the amount needed for future feats- aka, inflate the feat not the prices. While this isn't a solution to the cosmetic inflation, this could help for furniture. Everyone will pay the same price they would but those that choose to decorate will receive an ample amount of furniture worth the price/work to obtain them.

Example: Collect 6 Base Items from 2025 with Base Items priced at 15 marks apiece vs Collect 15 Base Items from 2025 with base items priced at 6 marks apiece. Both cost the player 90 Sand Dollars, but one allows them to have more for that cost.

Another thing that I think would help the community as a peace offering would be to finally make all older seasonal furniture stackable within player's inventory, much like newer furniture has been. I know this wouldn't deal with the inflation or engagement hours woes, but it would be a nice gesture to give the community. We've been asking for this for years now, and seeing as so much work has gone into rarity/price changing of older items I think it'd be nice if stacking was added too, at least for our benefit if you guys can swing it.

Upping the RNG rates of older cosmetics in the vault* would also be a way to help curb seasonal spending woes. While dealing with RNG isn't great, giving us extra chances to earn high priced cosmetics really helps curb out seasonal buying lists. I'm not saying make it a sure thing, but I do know that cosmetics seem to be dropped at a lower rate in vaults these days, and given they're only part of 4 of the 8 seasonals, it'd be nice if those 4 had this offering for us.
*Given the Vault was disabled during Spring, I'm unsure if this will be a viable solution anymore, we'll have to wait and see.

An actual sale* during the seasonal would also be helpful if the inflation has to stay. We all know what happened with the St. Patrick's Day's sale, but the idea of an actual sale would be very helpful, doubly so if it was done towards the end of it. This time though, please double check and make sure the percentage of that sale actually gives us items at a reduced rate. Having to pay more for items that were already cheaper at full price the year before is really disheartening and causes more damage than anything.
*I do have notes from the Spring Sale as a positive, see post below.

The last suggestion would be to just simply rollback* the inflation, both for the older items that have been edited as well as potential currency allotment changes similar to St. Patrick's. I don't know how viable that is with whatever parameters you're facing, but I do know the community would be grateful for it.
*While it was after the fact, there have been St. Patrick's Day rollbacks on pricing. See post below.

I mentioned this in my last post of the St. Patrick's Day thread, but I really do think you found a good footing with the Love Conquers All/Valentine's Seasonal. Adding themed instances to events that offer seasonal marks is a great idea and fun too, but it's when the optional content becomes an essential daily queue to obtain not only newer, but older, seasonal items, that's when it's a problem.

A lot of us have no issue running older content for extra marks as an added bonus, but when it's expected, that's when the grind is too severe, feels like an arduous chore, and bounces us out. Have faith the community will play; even if the bonus marks aren't needed a good chunk of us will still want them.

As a decorator, I can also tell you the more furniture you let us earn from your seasonals, the more engagement hours you'll get from us. It takes a lot of time to decorate a base. A lot. If you produce new items and make them costly for bulk purchasing, I can guarantee you that we'll make good on spending hours in game creating bases. This will lead us to queuing Omnibus for DLC items we need. It'll make us need Source Marks for things from Cheetah and Base Item Boxes. It'll make us spend MP cash on deeds, themes, and base item packs. There's time there, and more importantly, it's time that's spent having fun on the game rather than treating it like a chore.

So that's my plea, as well as my information chart for the community.

Any comments, concerns, opinions and such are welcome, and I definitely would love to hear from the devs or CM too, if just be told this has been seen.
Thanks for reading.

TL;DR: After the latest downtime, Summer items have been inflated to cost more seasonal marks. The thread contains new pricing info, record of 2024's seasonal mark drops, and a potential suggestion list for QoL changes/counter offers to find a middle ground with the player base and goals of the team.

On a Positive Note

Besides just inflation of Summer items, this patch also rolled back a good chunk of St. Patrick's Day items to their original pricing including: Babbling Brooks, older (and some newer) Pub items, Inverse Rain, and Glowing/Celtic Stone pieces, and others. Though this won't help the damage done to the decorating community for the current year, it will help make things easier in years to come. So thank you for listening.

The Spring Sale was also very beneficial despite the overall inflation. It was an actual sale for the majority of the items except a few outliers, and having older furniture items being priced as low as 3 marks apiece was great. The one qualm would be those outliers: for Spring it was the Enchanted Forest Skylight and Moonlit Windows, for Summer it's Treelines, Patio Doors, Large Reef/Seafloor/Aquarium Window, Porthole Floor, and Sidescuttle. If these were rolled back to their original prices (as in, the years they were first released) and another 50% off sale was offered during the first week, I feel a lot of these changes wouldn't seem so harsh.

Example: The Reef Portholes (Large) were 15 Sand Dollars upon release in 2018. Aquarium Windows Large being 10 Sand Dollars upon release in 2022. Treelines were 20 in 2020, and are now 25. Etc.

Ok, I think that's about it. I'll close in saying seeing both of these changes does make me a lot more hopeful that the team and the community can find a good middle ground moving forward.

Thanks again for reading.

From a limited personal perspective - this has been my first stretch where I've been around consistently for more than a year, in over a decade. As the events dropped middle of last year into this year, I was hitting some for first time, and running catch up. Systematic checklist style feat runs. I was spending on replay badges to get as much in as I could, and in a couple cases bought currency to move it along, or get those base items I was too impatient to wait for.

When the prices went up, that stopped. Because play time went up to achieve the same goals, spending on replay wasn't worth it. And similarly, spending on currency would require so much more to achieve meaningful feats it wasn't worth it. So I did bare minimum daily to get event reward, and just used collected currency to get best feat possible if it happened.

So, at least for me, the price increase at seasonal vendors literally made me stop playing as much and stop spending money. If the goal is right there within arms reach, I'll grind and pay a bit if needed. If it makes it so the time or cost (real world) literally affect me in real life, I just say eff it and do none of it. Or bare minimum.

I was having fun and felt actual growth in quality of my character doing seasonal clean up end of 24 early 25. Since, just disappointed and feel like I'm missing something every time I log in.

If the goal was to make these seasonals take longer so new/mid level players have to run them for years to catch up and complete, or spend booku bucks to do it fast, I guess that works. I'm reluctantly taking the slow route and not being happy about it.

It’s not pricing that ruined that aspect of the game. It was the bullying, lying and intolerance among decorators. A lot of us were fine grinding when decorators could get along and have fun. But then everything became about bullying and jealousy and a lot of players couldn’t handle it. Prices are what it gets blamed on, but the bad morale and people not wanting to grind for base items isn’t due to prices. When prices went up the first time it was a matter of cooperation and trading and getting along with other decorators. But then when people didn’t feel welcome or comfortable, they left. If you pay attention next time the prices go down. You’ll see that the cost of items wasn’t the problem because if it was, everyone would come back.

I genuinely mean this from the bottom of my sarcasm: RIP DCUO

To be honest, I didn't understand your post... are you accusing the base builders themselves of toxicity, envy and creating drama out of thin air? Maybe I missed something (after all, I don't use Discord and communicate only through this forum and through the game itself), but I didn't notice that, on the contrary, the people I communicate with regularly are always happy to help...

What kind of sarcasm is this? The phrase has long since become a tasteless banality... and your messages have become so predictable, boring and banal that the former incarnation of "banality" wanted to file a demise and pass on his post to you

This entire thought process makes no sense any way you look at it.... for so many different reasons.

Maybe that’s what we should’ve done. Just communicated in game instead of getting close to the people that ran the community. Eve was great, and Crafters was a big party back then. But then when the group got new management, suddenly things became more toxic and competitive. The current people in charge after Eve left, it went downhill without her to balance out the jealousy, to keep the bullying in check.

Wait... People, who are into decorating compete and bully each other? That sounds adorable...

But how come? There's no scorecard in base building, so it should be all rainbows and sunshine.

In before we get gaslit by being told that the new prices were just the regular prices without the sale even though they were clearly different prices. I’m sure they will reduce the amount of marks we get for completing the content while also increasing the amount of credit we need to complete the OW. And I’m sure they are also removing the vault because “it doesn’t have the quality it needs” or to “focus on other areas of the game that are great for us” even though the vault gave players a lot of goodies. Oh well

Posts history has it from over hundred people that hates the price increase.
It's not that it ruined the games it's how ppl hate it.
She's not saying how it ruined the game :/

Have.......have you met people?

Truly sorry to hear that, fam... esp if any player who eats and sleeps deco was affected by it. That's tough.

Thank you. I appreciate that and you, very much.

Has DCUO become a Crime Alley simulator? Because I feel like I'm being robbed.

You give too much credit, their announcement happened during the spring seasonal, I'm pretty sure they are not going to comment on the new price changes (other than perhaps to list them) and certainly not state that they have increased the amount of work for the open world portion (which for the summer seasonal is far more of a pain than the spring seasonal) with less reward.

They also announced the vault being removed permanently (or at least the version we know, which means I wouldn't expect them to try to launch a new one, if they even choose to go that route, until next year at the earliest).

Keep up the good fight achi

I feel like they are going to remove the bucket for Halloween and not telling us in advance, so people that are getting candy each day from Teekle bucked are going to be really mad. The bucket gives us some free decoration etc. from vendor, so of course they are going to say they are not up to the new team's standard of quality and remove them .

The Dev’s have become so focused on keeping us busy that I’ve been reduced to 2 main toons when it comes to events, one hero and one villain. No time for themed base items for any toons except them. Get the feats and move on. I do rely on alts to help get those feats faster. But base decorating is no longer a priority